When the Honeymoon Ends

de-romanticizing perfect place and perfect people

As August leans towards September, I cannot help but feel a little buzz of excitement every time I think of students arriving on college campuses, backseats packed to the ceiling with plastic tubs, pillows, and garbage bags full of clothing. For many years, I worked within university student life as a Resident Director. While the hours during move-in and orientation week were long for staff, the air was electric. And, I have to admit, I miss it.

The door to our family’s on-campus apartment at MTSU.

I think back upon my own move to college and remember the possibility of being in a new place and amongst new people. The lack of shared history was not just refreshing but a relief. For the most part, everyone was on an even playing field, because we were all new. We carried the fresh scent of birds recently vacating the nest. Freedom was in the air, and like kids holding candy for the first time, we didn’t know whether to eat it all up at once or savor it, at least for a little while.

As a Resident Director, I watched this trend continue with every group of incoming freshmen. The anxious excitement those first few weeks was high.

But another strange phenomenon happened year after year: By November, the honeymoon period began to wane. Small annoyances amongst roommates ballooned into battles. Students stopped going to class or hanging out in common areas. Night after night, I’d get emergency calls about nineteen-year-olds in crisis. And as much as I tried to prepare the students in my hall for November, the mid-semester struggle always came.

As I reflect upon the change that occurred between August and November, I wonder how much of the tension was rooted in our human tendency to romanticize place and people. We paint a technicolor picture of what is new or next, only to be disappointed when the same struggles emerge or when loneliness comes knocking. We think what is up ahead will be the answer to the ache.

Yes, some people and places make belonging easier, but sooner or later even in the best of circumstances, the honeymoon ends.

Relationships are tested.
Situations change.
Competing values emerge.
Differences of opinion divide.
Our humanity bangs up against one another (sometimes in the middle of the night).

The temptation in these moments is to think we got the recipe wrong. Wrong roommate. Wrong campus. Wrong church. Wrong friend. And sometimes, that is true. I would never shame someone into staying in an unhealthy space or in a relationship without reciprocity. But year after year of watching October roll around on college campuses, I can tell you that more often than not a change in situation did not solve the underlying problem. Because beneath the discontent that makes us want to point our fingers at wrong place or wrong people is a question that often goes unanswered: What change is needed within me?

The first step toward belonging is often inward. It is resisting the urge to start tinkering with circumstance and instead turning toward what might be happening in our souls. Because when we cannot see and name what is stirring beneath the surface, we carry our struggles with us into the next dorm room, the next book club, the next friendship, the next town.

And hear this: It isn’t easy. It is not easy to see the shadows that might be lurking or even to say the words, “I want a friend.” Reflection is always a call to deep courage, because we never know what we might find as we look within. But the more we see ourselves clearly, the more we can open ourselves up to “know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12 NIV). Love invites us to look inward and then look up with eyes that have been softened by our own humanity.

The students who came out of freshman year thriving were the ones who learned to navigate their differences, communicate their desires, and find ways of living alongside people who did not look, behave, or think the same. Sure, they may not have roomed together again or decided on-campus living was just not their jam. But they emerged a little gentler, a little wiser, and a little more comfortable in their skin. They found a new kind of freedom, not dependent on place and people, but a belonging they learned to carry with them.

“By laying bare and facing the words of ourselves, we reveal the very best of ourselves.”
—Leonard Sweet, From Tablet to Table

I cannot find a better picture that says, “My mom was an RD.”